Foodservice equipment is used in commercial kitchens in the food preparation for volume-feeding facilities, such as restaurants, hotels, institutions, corporate dining rooms and the like, and in the presentation and service of prepared foods in cafeteria and buffet lines and the like.
In the past such commercial foodservice equipment has traditionally been custom designed for various specific foodservice functions so that each type of counter unit was self-contained and free standing. In one form of the prior art each counter unit is individually designed with a countertop integrally built onto a supporting base selected by the manufacturer to be compatible with the foodservice function of the top panel. Thus, once the countertop function was selected, the foodservice provider was forced to take the type of base configuration made available by the equipment manufacturer or, alternatively, the buyer had to order a customized counter unit made to his specifications and at a significantly greater cost.
Some modular-types of foodservice equipment have been provided in the past. Reference is made to McMillan U.S. Pat. No. 2,894,604 illustrating a typical form of prior equipment in which a series of compatible base units are selected (according to function) for a cafeteria or buffet line-up, and a unitary countertop is attached to match and orient the required surface configuration to the underlying supporting function. In some instances, separate foodservice units have been designed with mating top surface profiles, but all these prior equipment arrangements have used traditional nut-bolt assembly hardware and either the traditional preassembled form of counter unit must be moved around for assembly in an equipment line-up or the countertop surface must be assembled on the base cabinet line-up employing similar techniques to those used in domestic (household) kitchens. In addition, all counters used in preparing or serving food products are made of stainless steel, according to health standards, and traditionally heavy gauge stainless of at least 14 ga. has been deemed necessary heretofore, thus making the unit cost of commercial kitchens very high. Thus, in the past commercial foodservice counters have been very expensive, the selectivity of counter/base arrangements have been limited, the manufacturing and delivery time has been long, and assembly of equipment line-ups has been awkward and time consuming.